A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

“Not now, so much. I used to come with my father …” She faltered, as if she had intended to say more, but decided against it. Hesitation seemed to flit between the girl and her father like the brightly coloured birds carving the air around them.

  “But sadly, my work doesn’t allow me to get out these days as much as I’d like to,” said Walden.

  “A practice, you said. Law?” Jejeune’s casual tone did nothing to disguise his interest.

  “Clinical psychology, though much of my work is academic now. I’m on the faculty of the National University of Colombia in Bogota. My practice in Arizona is mainly long-term clients. I’d like to wind down, but the bond between a patient and a psychologist is not one that can be easily broken. It takes time, a gradual weaning process. For both parties, if I’m being honest.” It was clear Walden felt he had said enough about the subject. “So tell me, Inspector, what do you make of this place, sitting here as these wonders of nature spin about our heads? It’s a far cry from your black-and-white world of criminal investigations, I imagine?” Walden smiled, just in case anybody thought his question smacked a little too much of interrogation.

  “It’s incredible,” said Jejeune sincerely.

  “A shimmer, that’s what they call a collection of hummingbirds, isn’t it?” asked Thea. “Such a lovely English word.”

  “A shimmer of hummingbirds. It’s perfect,” said Traz. “Fleeting, here and then gone in an instant.”

  “Perhaps like the truth you seek in your work, Inspector. Only a moment to grasp it before it disappears forever.” She offered Jejeune a strange smile, playful but perhaps with hidden depths. He found it vaguely disquieting, and offered a trite comment to dispel the feeling.

  “I never imagined I’d ever see so many hummingbirds up close like this.”

  Traz laughed. “Casa de Colibries means House of Hummingbirds, Inspector. It was a pretty safe bet there’d be some hummers here.”

  Thea turned her head in interest. “You know this word, Colibries?”

  Traz shrugged uneasily. “I’ve picked up the odd one here and there.”

  “Still, this is not a Spanish word I would have expected you to have known.” Thea’s tone was pleasant, her inquiry suggested interest, nothing more. But behind his steel-rimmed spectacles, Carl Walden’s eyes seemed to be watching Traz with an intensity that went some way beyond casual curiosity.

  “What can I say?” Traz extended his hands to enhance his nonchalance. “Hey, that’s a Woodstar, right? White-bellied? See it, Domenic?”

  They spun their heads to follow the direction of Traz’s finger. A tiny bird hovered at a fuchsia bloom, as if suspended from an invisible wire. They watched as it dipped its beak delicately into the flower and then reversed away.

  “Flying backwards.” said Traz with genuine admiration. “That’s what fifty wingbeats a second will get you.”

  “My father will tell you they’re wing rolls rather than beats. It’s what gives hummingbirds their astonishing flying skills,” said Thea, looking at Walden. She shrugged. “But I still prefer to see it as just another one of nature’s miracles.”

  “Colombia’s magical realism, alive and well in its hummers,” said Traz. “Like the Sword-billed Hummingbird. I’ve never seen one, but they tell me it’s incredible, the way it dances in the air with such a massively long bill.”

  The waitress came over to collect the empty cups and the group waited for her to complete her task before continuing their conversation. At a nearby bush, two birds jousted for a moment, the sound of their whirring wings filling the air around them. The waitress paused and watched them, smiling. “They move so fast. It’s like they’re so busy, they only have so much time to get their work done.”

  “Are those Sparkling Violetears?” Traz asked her.

  The waitress shrugged. “Possibly. Or Green. Sometimes it is hard to tell.” She turned to look at the Waldens. “Only Mariel could tell us for sure, no?”

  The look between Thea and her father was brief, but Jejeune did not miss it.

  “Who’s Mariel?”

  “Mariel Huaque, a former guide for Mas Aves.” It was not clear whether Walden intended to offer any more information, but the waitress stepped in anyway.

  “She can even identify individual hummingbirds of the same species.”

  “That would take some doing, surely,” said Traz, careful to keep any note of disbelief from his voice.

  Carl Walden’s momentary intake of breath was followed by a soft smile. “It’s true. Mariel was a patient of mine. She came to me after she fell and hit her head on a rock.” He shook his head. “Something as simple as that; a twenty-eight-year-old woman falls and her life changes forever.” He paused in thought for a moment and looked at his daughter. The meaning was not lost on the men. Thea would be about the same age as Mariel was when she had her accident.

  “She was in a coma for two days, and when she woke up she found she could see the world differently. Things slowed down, she was able to take in details, no matter how fast something was moving. It’s a condition known as acquired savant syndrome. Everything she saw left an impression in her mind, like a vapour trail of pixels. At least, that’s how I understand it. She never was quite able to articulate her experience clearly. I used to bring her here to test her skills. I would videotape the birds, then later, back at the lab, she would tell me what she had seen and we would run back the films in super slow-mo to compare them. Her observational skills were near-perfect.”

  Walden seemed to recoil slightly from his memories and neither Traz nor Jejeune felt any desire to push him for further details. Thea, too, seemed uneasy at the mention of Mariel, though Jejeune could not have said quite why.

  “It’s getting late,” she announced suddenly. “We should probably get going if we want to miss the worst of the traffic on the way back.”

  “You don’t want to wait a while to see if a Sword-billed Hummingbird shows up?” Traz seemed reluctant to see the visit end so soon.

  “I think it will not come today,” said Thea. She picked up her bag and, with a thin smile at the men, began walking in the direction of the parked bikes.

  As they negotiated the switchbacks along the edge of the caldera, descending into the fading twilight hanging over Bogota, Jejeune reflected on their day. Despite the glittering array of hummingbirds on show at Casa de Colibries, he had found their visit troubling. The conversations with the Waldens, and between father and daughter, had been full of false starts and half-formed ideas, as if there was always more lying beneath the surface. It left Jejeune with a sense of twirling in a breeze, moved by unseen forces, strange and unsettling.

  Thea signalled to a parking area along the side of the road and Walden guided his bike to a stop beside hers. He went over to speak to his daughter, who had taken off her helmet and was sitting astride her bike, shaking her long hair free of tangles. Traz approached Jejeune and the two men stood before a low wall looking out over the city, nestled in the black bowl of the plain.

  “Some view,” said Traz.

  “Any idea what today was all about?”

  “Maybe not you, for once. Apparently, couples come up here to picnic in the evenings. It’s considered something of a romantic hotspot.” Traz pushed out his bottom lip. “I’ve had worse signals. But even if it was about getting to know more about you, a little curiosity is to be expected. I’m sure they recognize your surname. Damian’s was a pretty well-known case here, JJ. Any Colombian of Thea’s generation who is as interested in her country’s recent past is going to know about indigenous rights issues. Damian Jejeune’s name is going to be a part of those conversations.”

  Traz strolled off to join Thea, leaving Jejeune alone to gaze out over the vast, sprawling plain below. The lights of Bogota lay before him like a carpet of diamonds. He thought about the people who lived in the homes they had passed on the way out. People in love, caring for their children, living life. Daily human commerce, the universal language of existence on this planet
. How would they feel about the deaths of indigenous Karijona people? Sad, their hearts broken a little at the thought of innocent lives lost. But would they condemn a man to ten years in prison for it? A decade in a hellhole like the notorious La Tramacúa?

  There was a blast from a car horn. A man in a passing car shouted something at Thea and she shouted something back. Harassment? Possibly. But like so much else out here, the truth was a shadow, hiding in the grey margins of uncertainty, until Domenic Jejeune was unsure what was reality and what was merely the product of his own imagination. Walden called out to them and the two men walked back to the bikes. Tomorrow they would begin the tour. Perhaps clarity was waiting for Jejeune in the lowland rainforest of El Paujil. Or perhaps only more uncertainty.

  11

  Laraby rubbed his hands as he got into Maik’s Mini, making a show of enjoying the warmth inside the car. Maik had turned down the music as Laraby climbed in, but it was still loud enough for the detective inspector to comment.

  “So who’s this, then? Barry Manilow?”

  Maik pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he put the car in gear.

  “It’s Jimmy Ruffin, one of the early Motown artists.”

  “Motown, eh? My ex used to like that stuff. Thelma Houston, Lionel Ritchie.”

  “As I say,” said Maik with the kind of restraint that could cause a person injury, “I tend to listen to the earlier artists.”

  “What was the name of that Motown group? Had one or two big hits?”

  Like most people who discover an unexpected curiosity in their interests, Maik was keen to encourage it. He quick-fired a couple of suggestions. “The Temptations? Junior Walker and the All Stars?”

  Laraby shook his head slowly. “It’ll come to me,” he said. He turned to take in the passing countryside. While he seemed content enough this time to at least let Jimmy Ruffin continue at his present volume, if the DI had any further concern for what became of the broken-hearted, he showed no sign.

  They continued their journey along the country lanes in silence, the pale daylight flickering between the bare branches of the hedgerows like a black-and-white film reel. Neither man spoke again until Maik turned off the road and began bumping the Mini over the rutted surface of a long driveway.

  “Blimey, what have we got here?” asked Laraby.

  In the centre of the large field in front of them, an inflated dome sat on the brown, frost-hardened soil like a giant white eggshell. Beside it, dwarfed by the smooth white mass of the structure, was Lauren Salter’s Toyota. Maik drew up alongside and the two men got out. Salter pointed to a large sign in block letters next to the door. DO NOT ENTER. RING BELL AND WAIT.

  “I did,” she said, “and I am.”

  The bone-chilling wind drove low across the treeless landscape, cutting into the officers as they huddled in the doorway. Trails of breath curled around their heads; smoke from the warm fires of human souls.

  “Enough of this,” said Maik, “we’ll wait inside.” He pushed open the door and stepped in, followed by the others. Even in the dim half-light of the interior, Maik could see that the dome was immense, bigger even than it had appeared from the outside. He found himself standing on what he took to be a running track that ran around the outer wall, although there were no lane markings. The track enclosed a space that Maik estimated was comfortably big enough to house at least eight football fields. But there was no turf, natural or otherwise. Instead, a latticework of grid wires divided patches of soil up into small squares.

  Maik was still taking it all in when he heard the cries of alarm and from behind somebody struck him full force in the small of the back. He collapsed forward into one of the soil squares, feeling the weight of the other person land on him. A loud sound filled the air beside his head, and through a blur of confusion, he heard a voice over a loudspeaker. “Kill them. Kill them all. Now!”

  Maik’s instinct, hard-wired into him over years of training, was to roll toward cover; to move, to escape, to do anything but lie there and make it easy to be shot at. But whoever had attacked him had him pinned to the ground. He reached back with an elbow and slammed it into his assailant’s face. There was a cry of pain, and the other person slumped off Maik’s back and onto the ground beside him. Maik rolled away, to give himself more space for his next blow. But it never came.

  The bright lights snapped on with a loud metallic click. “Stay exactly where you are,” ordered the voice over the loudspeaker. “Don’t move. I’m coming over.”

  Maik helped Salter to a sitting position and offered her his handkerchief. “I’m sorry, I didn’t … I heard …”

  Salter was bleeding heavily from her mouth and nose and she pressed the handkerchief to the area firmly. Maik hoped it was the blow that had caused the watering eyes, but he wasn’t sure. On the ground a few metres away lay a metallic four-legged contraption about the size of a serving platter. All across the interior of the dome, other disks fluttered to the ground like falling leaves and settled onto the soft black earth. Kill them all, thought Maik. He heard the sound of running footsteps on the track and looked up to see a young man in jeans and a sweatshirt hovering over them.

  “Exactly what part of DO NOT ENTER didn’t you get?” demanded the young man angrily. “Do you realize you’ve just cost me an entire day’s work? I’m going to have to recalibrate the whole damn fleet now, you morons.”

  His lack of concern for their condition, compounded by the indignity of sitting in the dirt, after Danny Maik had just smacked her one, was more than Salter was prepared to put up with. She snatched the handkerchief away from her face angrily and rounded on the man. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?” she snarled fiercely. “You could have taken his head off with that damned thing.”

  Having satisfied himself that both of his officers were going to survive their ordeal, Laraby stepped forward and reached out a hand to help Salter up. He suspected Maik might want to take care of himself.

  “Look, we’ve been through all this with you people before,” continued the man, speaking as if to children. “We have secured all the necessary permits. They are registered and on file. So if there’s nothing else, perhaps you can let us get on with our work. Goodbye.”

  He made an impatient ushering motion with his hands; the same one Salter had seen farmers use to get sheep off the local roads at times. But she was not going anywhere just yet. “What permits? Just what are you up to in here?”

  “It has to do with controlled drone flights. Ring any bells?” said the young man in a tone that had Salter looking like she might want to start ringing a few bells of her own.

  “I’d suggest you change your attitude,” said Laraby darkly, “before you find yourself arrested for reckless endangerment.”

  “What, because some old fool chose to ignore a clearly posted DO NOT ENTER sign? What did he think it was, an eye chart?”

  Maik had rolled to his feet and was eying the man-child stonily, as if he thought he might need to identify him again at some point. The young man retreated slightly under his stare.

  Salter was still dabbing at her mouth, but it didn’t seem to be staunching the flow of blood. “You all right, Constable?” asked Laraby. “Do you want to press charges?” He gave her a cheeky smile. “Against either of them?”

  “Constable.” A look of panic crossed the man’s face. “You’re the police?” He held up his hands defensively. “Hey, look, I’m sorry. Okay? I thought you were those bozos from the council again. They’re up here all the time. I swear, it’s as if they think we’re conducting alien autopsies in here or something.”

  “I think we’d better start by having a word with the person in charge of this facility,” said Laraby.

  “You’re having it.”

  “You’re Dr. Amendal?” Laraby’s surprise was obvious. In his defence, the person standing before him looked even younger than the fresh-faced constable who’d given him a ride to the cottage a couple of day
s before. The man’s lank hair framed a thin face of uncertain complexion. His large black-rimmed glasses seemed almost a statement of defiance against the world’s opinions — of him and everything else. Behind them, intelligent eyes flickered back and forth as he sought some sort of understanding as to how his well-ordered world could have gone so catastrophically off course in such a short space of time.

  “Perhaps we could go into your office?” suggested Laraby.

  Amendal gave a short laugh and fished a phone out of his pocket. “This is my office,” he said. “I’m okay to chat here, if you are.”

  Laraby looked at Salter, who was still holding the handkerchief to her face. It was soaked with blood now. Laraby fished in his pocket and produced another one. “Well, perhaps you’ve got a toilet where the constable can get herself cleaned up, at least.” He nodded at the man’s phone. “I presume those aren’t in there as well.”

  Amendal directed Salter to a small cubicle at the far end of the complex, and she left, brushing the dirt from her clothes with her free hand as she went.

  Maik was doing the same thing as Laraby turned to him. “Want her to bring you a glass of prune juice back, Sergeant?” he asked with a smile.

  Amendal held up his hands again. “Oh, hey, that ‘old’ comment. The light in here sometimes, it’s …”

  “Any chance we could get on with this while I’ve still got all my faculties?” said Maik gruffly.

  “Sure. Of course. What is it you want to know?”

  Laraby looked out over the gridded quadrants spread out across the interior of the dome. “Why don’t we start with exactly what it is that the Picaflor project is doing?”

  “We’re going to use drones to undertake large-scale tree replanting programs,” said Amendal. “Humans currently cut down about fifteen billion trees a year. With the best will in the world, no planting initiatives are going to come anywhere close to replacing that number, but with our technology, we can at least do a hell of a lot better than we are currently. We’re going to be reforesting massive tracts of land, more than could possibly be covered by conventional methods. We’re talking about thousands of hectares, many in remote, inaccessible areas. It’s going to make a massive impact on the problem of carbon emissions.”